Firewhiskey And Fireplaces
by chemicalflashes
Summary: "A siren - that's what she is, with her lithe and curvaceous body and chocolate eyes that could make any man a slave of hers." Dean Thomas is hurting after Ginny's betrayal. And who knew Colin Creevey could be so dark natured? [decayverse]
**A/N: Written for the Weekly Character Appreciation Challenge by hillstar on HPFC.**

 **Week 1 (1/5/16-8/5/16): Dean Thomas**

 **This fic can most definitely be called a very well in advance submission for week 12 (Colin Creevey) too, since this a Colin/Dean FRIENDSHIP fic. :P**

 **Warnings:**

 **1\. Language (boys have filthy tongues, especially drunk boys)**

 **2\. A lot of dialogue.**

 **#2 submission for week 1.**

. . . ...

 _Firewhiskey And Fireplaces_

 _(Or, Ginny Weasley Must Burn)_

Dean absolutely cannot believe what he has witnessed this evening. Ginny Weasley - his former girlfriend, kissed Harry Potter in front of everyone in the Common Room without so much as a thought about him or his feelings. Seamus does not seem to care either, because all he rambles is about Lavender these days.

Is nothing sacred in these testing times?

The scene plays in his mind over and again as he strolls through the semi-darkness of an abandoned corridor. Harry had just been standing in the middle of the crowd and then Ginny, in all her redheaded, flaming glory had stepped out from the edges and kissed him hard on the lips. Harry had not responded at first, but then, within a few moments his hands had come to rest on the siren's waist.

Yes, a siren. That is what she is - a deadly siren, with a lithe and curvaceous body and chocolate eyes that could make any man a mere slave of hers.

There had been a flash of a camera, after which the two had pulled apart. She had given Harry a very beautiful smile - a smile which had only been reserved for him until two months earlier. It feels so long ago, the two of them roaming through Hogsmeade, hands clasped together and heads resting lightly against each other's. He does not know where it went wrong. What crime has he committed to suffer this sheer injustice?

Dean does not realise when he stops walking and when his arms come to rest on a window sill on their own accord. His eyes gaze upon the twilight scenery before him and he sighs. His hands clutch his forehead as a cool summer wind dances around his body. His back bends down like that of a broken doll.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" a broken but sharp voice cuts through the dark.

He is disoriented for a few seconds before he makes out someone standing by a window some feet away from him. Footsteps in that direction make him see that it is Colin Creevey. And he is holding a bottle of what-is-definitely-firewhiskey in one hand and a half-filled glass in the other.

For more than a minute, Dean remains dumbstruck as if he has seen a ghost. The sight is unnerving. Yes, a lot of the students call this boy insane (even he is guilty of it) for his antics and excessive fascination with the Boy Who Lived, but clearly, all of them do not know about the deepness of his insanity. Questions are whizzing through his head.

Whoever drinks firewhiskey in a corridor where any passing professor or student could spot them? Whoever sneaks the stuff into the School in the first place? Most people get it over with a glass or two at the Hog's Head. Whoever drinks a firewhiskey this strong? The mere smell is making him recoil back. He is sure the stuff is not even sold anywhere near Hogwarts.

The younger boy chuckles noiselessly as he re-fills his glass and holds it out, offering it to him. In the moonlight, his eyes are wild and crazy. They are practically glinting and the dark circles underneath them are somewhat frightening.

"Oh come on, Thomas, live a little! Nothing fixes heartbreak like a little liquor. You know it!"

For a small, small moment, Dean is surprised at not being able to detect even a single trace of slur in his voice since he has chugged down half a bottle, but then quite suddenly, irrational red hot anger from nowhere washes over him like a huge tidal wave.

"Whatever do you know of heartbreak, you dimwit?" he snarls. "You took a bloody photo of them for cherishing it till eternity."

Creevey closes his eyes as he puts the glass and the bottle on the sill. He rests an arm languidly against the solid stone of the wall.

"Dimwit. That's a new one," he murmurs softly as if he just has not been insulted and instantly opens back his eyes.

Dean freezes when this happens; for if his eyes had been glinting earlier, they are now positively blazing. He does not look human. He is not human.

"Call me anything you want," he growls as he approaches him. There is a little falter present in his steps. He glares up at him and Dean realises that the boy is the same height as Ginny. "Madman, waste of space, fag, fool, queer, mudblood, insane, irritant and now dimwit - I have heard it all. And they fucking mean nothing," he spats, the oppressive smell of the firewhiskey filling Dean's nostrils.

"Think you know about love and heartbreak, eh Thomas? You ain't know anything!" he adds in between haggard coughs.

He raises his eyebrows. Creevey is Irish? The lilt in his voice is certainly telling him so. Strange nobody has ever noticed it before.

"And what do you know of it?" Dean asks him evenly with a hint of sarcasm lacing his words.

"More than you would think. More than you know."

He does not reply.

"You all blokes are the same, really! Girl leaves you and your life is over. You all befriend her when she hits her fourteenth birthday. But what about the boy who chased her since first year? What about the boy who got left behind? Oh no, he's just an insane freak, that's what he is! He is worthless and he is me."

"But - "

"Oh, please." He waves his hand in a grand sweeping motion. "We both know that girls have been the problems of boys since the beginning of time. Don't give me a lecture on how much you love Ginny and how you're slowing breaking from the inside. Blah, blah, blah..."

"But I do love her!"

"Really?"

His eyes look right into his eyes, as if trying to pierce through his soul. It seems that the boy does find some truth in his claims, for he stops his glaring after a few seconds.

"Right," Creevey's tongue rolls out, stretching the R in the word. "You do, Thomas, you most certainly do."

An awkward silence prevails in the air before Dean suddenly catches hold of his elbow and begins pulling him.

"Um, what are you doing?"

"Getting you out of trouble," he whispers. "Getting you back to the Tower."

Creevey struggles against his iron grip. "I don't want to go there!" he yells and Dean has half a mind to cast a silencing charm upon him. "They must be partying. The mere sound of their music makes me want to bang my head against the wall."

"No, it isn't because of that. I know it. Now come on before a prefect spots us. Quick!"

Hysterical laughter answers him.

Only Dean knows the ordeal he has to undergo while bringing up the stoned boy back to the Common Room.

••••••••••

They are sitting beside each other in front of the fireplace and it is well past midnight. His nose crinkles as the boy downs yet another glass.

"What is that stuff even?"

"Self-made."

He rolls his eyes. "You're joking," he deadpans.

He shrugs as if it does not matter how a sixteen year old boy knows how to make a liquor of such a strong essence. And how come it is not poisoning him? He could not have distilled it himself, could he?

"Photography's not the only thing I'm good at."

They fall into silence again, but this time it is not oppressive and the two of them watch the flames throwing off a warm amber glow into the room.

"Do you know why I took them - their photographs?" Creevey continues after a while. "So that I could burn them. Didn't even shoot it with my usual Argus Matchmatic. Used the Polaroid so that I wouldn't have to wait. Pathetic, really. Do you want to see them? We could burn them together."

Dean is not sure what to say. Would not burning their photos be a little over the top? He is not sure he even wants to see her throwing herself at Harry again.

"Yes," he finds himself muttering, "I'll see them."

"Good!" The boy beams and looks normal, looks like he does in the daylight with his ever present cheerfulness.

After about five minutes, he returns with a very enormous, old, red book on which 'Chemistry' is written in white block letters. He keeps the fat book on the floor with a muffled thump. A lot many papers are sticking out of it at various places.

"Wait," he breathes out, "You do Muggle schooling too?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then you should be giving O Levels. This book is clearly far beyond A++ levels!"

"What can I say? I love Chemistry. Now, do you want to see them or not?" The mad glint is back in his eyes.

"Of course."

The boy picks up the book from the ground and opens it in his lap. A few pages fall out and Dean can barely make out the words 'poisonous', 'phosgene', 'deodorant' and 'cannisters' scribbled on them in the glow of the fire. Creevey hurriedly collects them before he can remark anything and flings out the photographs from the book hastily.

"Here," he murmurs and hands him a bunch. There are at least fifteen photos in it. They are all stills and show the same thing from different angles. Creevey casually picks one up, glances at it and throws it into the hungry fire. The flames lick both the people inside it in a matter of seconds.

"I don't hate them," Dean tells him. "I just can't fathom why they would do this to me. It just hurts so much."

"I don't hate them either. But I hate their relationship. And so here goes to nothing," he states and throws in two more photos. "Ginny was never ours and she must burn in hell. Figuratively, of course."

Dean can tell that this is the firewhiskey speaking.

"You do realise, Creevey, that if everyone fought fire with fire, the entire world would go up in smoke."

"Oh, shut up, Thomas! I have had enough of philosophy. The entire world is smoke, anyway. The damn girl hasn't any control on herself or her emotions. We, on the other hand, guard ours so carefully. I wonder why we do... I wonder what could have happened if we had said them aloud at the right moment. I wonder why we even have them."

"Same here," he whispers and picks up a photo with a shaking hand.

"Come on, do it. Or perhaps you ain't have the guts, you big softie?"

Dean brushes the hair falling in his face with a deft hand, proceeds to glare at him and throws the infernal thing into the fire.

"Who are you calling a softie? Pass me the firewhiskey."

••••••••••

They never make it to their dormitories.

When the bright rays of the cold Sunday morning hit his face at 5 o'clock, he opens his eyes only to wince in pain as the iridescent light tortures his retinas. After a minute, when sense of depth and direction has returned to him, Dean sits up to take in his surroundings. The Room is empty. He is on the sofa while Creevey is sprawled on the floor, the Chemistry tome from last night acting as his pillow.

At some point in the night one of them must have smashed the bottle and the glass because bits of cracked glass are present a little away from the asleep boy. Creevey looks like he has just escaped from hell due to his wiry frame, ruffled mousey brown hair and purple dark circles underneath his eyes. His skin is as white as a ghost. He is certainly not human.

The fire has died out, leaving behind a vast quantity of burnt ashes in the fireplace. The world is spinning.

"Oh look, who's awake."

He freezes instantly and turns around his neck to look at Ginny Weasley giving him one of her famous glares.

You have to keep your cool, Thomas, you have to, he thinks and stands up to face her.

"What is the meaning of all this, Dean? You do realise that I would have to report all this to McGonagall."

"We were just - "

"Stop with the fake explanations already. I can smell the firewhiskey!"

He tenses. Behind him, he can hear Creevey stirring up.

"Oh look, it is our favourite redhead!" he spats. "What does Prefect Ginevra Molly Weasley require of us?" He is sneering.

Definitely inhuman, Dean decides inwardly.

"I never expected this from you, Colin!" she shrieks.

"So now you're replying to me? I thought we weren't talking?" His eyes are blazing like twin fireballs full of ire. "You want to take us to McGonagall? Well, I am not coming. Take that!"

He bends down to pick up his book and turns around on the spot to head to his dorm.

"See ya, Thomas!" he speaks nonchalantly, but Dean can pick a decisive tone in his voice.

Ginny's mouth is a little agape as she watches him exit. Nobody disobeys a prefect's orders!

"Look, I am sorry for his terse behaviour," Dean murmurs lowly once the other boy has gone. "But I kind of agree with him. You deserve this, Ginny," he grits out. "You deserve to feel valueless and unheard for once in your life. Like you made us feel."

By her confused eyes, he knows she does not even have a single clue about what he is talking.

"One day, I'll apologise to you and perhaps you'll do the same. But not today. Have a happy life with Harry."

The last sentence is spoken rather harshly.

His head is whirling and the edges of his vision are blurry, but these hindrances do not stop him on his quest to stay away from her.

Dean is hurting, he does not want to think about her any more now.

. . . ...

 **Suggested additional readings:**

 **1\. When did Colin Creevey become so dark? - 'Gasoline' and 'State Of Decay' (Don't you just want to know what 'phosgene' and 'cannisters' meant?)**

 **2\. Colin's back story with Ginny - 'Choking On Unspoken Words' (Why wasn't she talking to him?)**

 **3\. Do Dean and Colin talk again? - 'Lines Of Ink'**

 **. . . ...**

 **So, what do you think about it?**


End file.
